She is looked after by his sister Anne Burton and he is trying to raise thousands of pounds to keep open a dementia café threatened by funding cuts and to support Dementia UK.

John, 54, and Gary 46, who runs Frydays fish and chip shop in Eaglescliffe, planned the UK Football Ground Challenge, clocking up around 2,400 miles between football clubs starting in Sunderland before travelling around the North-east, the North-west, Yorkshire, Midlands, Wales, the South-west, south coast, London and East Anglia, ending at the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough.

John was due to ride his KTM690, accompanied by Gary on a Ducati Multistrada.

But just before the start, it developed problems with its fuel pump and Teasdale KTM, of Thirsk, North Yorkshire, had to come to the rescue with a brand new loan bike.

“We didn’t make lives easy for ourselves,” said John, one of the first Roary the Lion Boro mascots from 1994-97.

Roary, the Boro Lion mascot (Image: Teesside Archive)

“Our satnav was five years out of date so many of the grounds weren’t listed, the gear lever almost fell off the Duke in 3 lanes of cars on the A2, and the Ducati had problems with its electrics because they got so wet.

“At Newcastle, I thought the radiator had gone on the KTM, but it was just hot rainwater pouring over it. We also underestimated the number of traffic lights and roadworks.

“We were spending about 15 hours a day in the saddle, often leaving at 6am and one night we didn’t get to West Ham until 10pm. We got about four or five hours sleep, and afterwards it felt like jet-lag. It was very gruelling but very rewarding.”

Canadian company Terraclean has adopted Dementia UK as its 2017 charity and money has already been raised for the cause.

Three of John’s Newcastle friends, who work for Terraclean, are planning to do the 92 challenge in September.